Lt. Keo Sengkhamphong plucks a black binder from the bookshelf behind his desk at the Morrow Police Department. He gazes at the cover. It features a shirtless fighter leaping in front of a Buddhist temple, his right knee leading the attack.

"Maybe one day," Sengkhamphong says, sporting his usual playful smile.

Allen Sullivan/ aesullivan@ajc.com (ENLARGE)

Lt. Keo Sengkhamphong of the Morrow Police Department addresses fellow police officers during a recent night shift roll call. 'Lt. Keo,' the field training officer coordinator, would like to teach his colleagues the martial art of Muay Thai.

Allen Sullivan/ aesullivan@ajc.com (ENLARGE)

Lt. Keo Sengkhamphong (center right) works with trainees during their first night as a team.

PROFILE • Name: Keo Sengkhamphong • Age: 47 • Residence: Riverdale • Family: Married with son, 22, and daughter, 16. • Occupation: Lieutenant with the Morrow Police Department. As field training officer coordinator, in charge of teaching new recruits. RELATED LINKS: • More Clayton news • More Metro news • Metro photo galleries

The man known simply as "Lt. Keo" has been itching to train his fellow officers in Muay Thai, a form of martial arts learned in his native Laos, where he fought professionally. Called the "Science of Eight Limbs," Muay Thai features not just punches and kicks but blows from shins and elbows, too.

But a wave of turnover in the department has forced Sengkhamphong to focus on his primary job: field training officer coordinator. It's his responsibility to make sure new recruits know how to write an arrest report, handcuff a suspect and make snap decisions on whether to use deadly force.

Sengkhamphong also helps organize barbecues in neighborhoods with large Vietnamese and Laotian populations. He interprets. And he explains property maintenance codes to new residents in this Clayton County town of 5,000 straddling Interstate 75 south of Atlanta.

Though not a Kroo Muay — the name for a Muay Thai instructor — he has grown into another type of teacher.

As he flips through his homemade manual, Sengkhamphong stops at a page that displays his five "Rules of Combat." They're borrowed bits of wisdom, drawn from Greek battlefields and the American gridiron.

And, in a way, they describe how Sengkhamphong landed here, wearing a crew cut on his head and a police radio on his shoulder.

Rule #1: Winning is

Sengkhamphong's career in Muay Thai started at age 16. The Friday night fights were a way to earn a little spending money while he attended college in Laos, which had fallen to the communists three years earlier.

Sengkhamphong held much promise. He had learned acrobatic moves from Thai men who lived in an apartment next to him growing up in the Laotian capital of Vientiane. "I'd get coffee and the newspaper for them in the mornings," he says. "Then I'd watch."

The men would compete fiercely, whacking each other with bamboo sticks and sharpening their moves on sacks of sawdust and rice. Eventually, they took little Keo under their wing.

The men didn't teach him to compete. They taught him to win.

Rule #2: Winners never quit and quitters never win.

Sengkhamphong lost his first two fights. For all his athletic ability, he lacked match experience and didn't fully understand the mental aspects of Muay Thai. "It doesn't matter how hard you try," he says. "You have to think. All the time you have to think what you've got to do."

He began listening to what his trainer said. He was more patient and took note of his opponents' weaknesses. It was a turning point.

Sengkhamphong won his next 50 matches. And though he didn't know it, they would be his last matches, too.

Rule #3: Never start a fight. Always finish one.

Sengkhamphong had grown disillusioned with a communist regime that limited religious expression, career choices and even Muay Thai. He made his move at a New Year's celebration in the Mekong River, which divides Laos from Thailand.

Boats full of people from both countries meet in the middle of the river to celebrate each year. But on that night in 1980, he began using another skill he learned from those men next door. He spoke Thai. When the party ended, Sengkhamphong, then 18, remained on one of the Thailand-bound boats, blending in with the others.

He bounced from a refugee camp to Seattle to a mill in North Carolina. In 1990, Sengkhamphong moved to Atlanta and opened up a Chinese restaurant. One customer — a Forest Park police captain — was always badgering him to join the force there. The area was rapidly gaining immigrants from Vietnam and Laos, the captain would point out, yet there were no Asian police officers. Sengkhamphong signed up.

Any questions about Sengkhamphong's size — he's a stocky 5 feet 6 inches — were answered early. Morrow Police Sgt. Richard Thrasher, who worked alongside him in Forest Park, recalled the day a suspect lifted a hand toward Sengkhamphong, thinking he could overpower him. Next thing Thrasher knew, the man was kissing the ground inside the apartment complex.

"I really can't tell you what move it was," he said. "It happened so fast."

Rule #4: Pain is temporary. Glory is forever.

Sengkhamphong jumped to the police department in Morrow nine years ago. Then he was the only Asian officer in a city that, according to the Census Bureau, was 13 percent Asian. Now he's one of three.

His work has been recognized by the local Knights of Columbus chapter, which named him Officer of the Year twice, in 1999 and 2006. Morrow Police Chief Jeff Baker promoted him to lieutenant last year.

That's when Sengkhamphong had an idea. He hadn't completed the cycle of Muay Thai. Always mentored, he had never been mentor as the discipline demands.

He told the chief that Muay Thai could help the other officers stay in shape and gain focus. Baker, who has taken classes in the Japanese martial art of aikido, hoped it would help the officers bond as well. He gave the project his blessing.

The department acquired two punching bags and a workout dummy. A Buddhist monk in Stone Mountain donated special headbands and armbands. Baker even hatched a name: Camp Enlightenment.

Rule #5: We do not rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training.

Sengkhamphong grips a duct-tape-wrapped broomstick that's padded at both ends. Then, whip-whap, he jabs the air inside a police warehouse.

"Usually, we use a bamboo stick," he says. "But in the United States, I had to go a little soft."

Sengkhamphong has had to put his Muay Thai dreams on hold while the city converts a workout room into a gym. Until then, he'll continue to draw on those daily doses of satisfaction that come from watching a student taught well.

Sengkhamphong hops into his squad car and news of a DUI suspect comes crackling over the radio. He cruises to the scene — the parking lot of a Krystal restaurant. There an officer holds up a pen and asks the subject to follow it as he moves the pen from side to side. Everything is under control.

As he pulls away, Sengkhamphong looks into the rearview mirror. He is content.

"I trained him."